


mercury

by pristinbian



Category: PRISTIN (Band)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Space AU, feat. other idols and rest of pristin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-20 06:51:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19371568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pristinbian/pseuds/pristinbian
Summary: Minkyung is a notorious thief and bandit-for-hire, traveling around the galaxy on the run from everyone that wants to catch her. Yebin is an eager young recruit of the galaxy's largest crime-stopping organization, determined to stop her. What they didn't expect was to find more in common than they thought.





	1. take you there

Minkyung is a little bit nervous.

It’s unique for her—she usually isn’t so on edge. 

But today is different.

This job is strange. It’s too easy. It’s not like she has a hard time usually, but there’s something about this one that feels too good to be true. A large sum of credits at stake for what? Stealing one little USB drive from a loosely protected embassy? It can’t be right. 

She shakes her head, and furrows her brow. None of this matters. She gets the job done, and she can get the money—enough to buy a new ship—and she can fly off to a vacation planet like Praxis or something. Take some time for herself.

Minkyung finally snaps back to reality. She’s currently perched on the roof of a building hundreds of feet in the air, and she has a job to do, god damn it. She taps her wrist, activating her holo-watch, quickly pulling up the map of the ventilation system for one last scan. Eyes flitting over the details, she tries to take it all to mind. A pretty simple layout. After her second prison escape, she’s become pretty confident in her ventilation tunnel navigation skills. The small flashing red dots on her screen inform her that there’s only about 20 guards in this building—a small amount for a structure of its size. 

She unclips the multi-tool from her belt, shutting off the holo-watch as she does. Carefully, she unscrews the cover of the grate next to her that leads into the tunnels she will have to navigate. If she was feeling a little more showy, she’d burn a hole right through the metal of the roof, but the goal of this job was to remove the desired item and cause as little disturbance as possible. No fun tricks. Save that for the museum heists. Snapping her goggles over her face, Minkyung lowers herself through the grate and lands with a soft metallic thud in the inner tubing of the embassy. 

On her knees, Minkyung begins the crawl to her desired location: an office on the very top floor. There should be about two guards outside, she remembers from her briefing. The briefing itself was very odd—the client had requested to meet at a junky burger joint located on an asteroid, and they had worn a full helmet and a voice-changer the entire time. She knew clients liked to keep things confidential, but what was the big deal with just one USB? Perhaps it was government secrets. Secret codes. A map to a lost treasure. Whatever it was, it was at least worth a million credits. A million credits that would soon be Minkyung’s if she didn’t fuck this all up. 

She’s been lost in her thoughts for so long, that she almost doesn’t realize she’s arrived where she needs to exit—a vent above the door to the office, which is indeed flanked by two guards. Neither are wearing masks or any sort of breath protection, which means she can do this the easy way. Minkyung digs into a pouch attached to her belt, and pulls out a small white capsule. She pulls a silver disk from her bag and sticks the capsule Pressing a button on the disk, she pulls the mask hanging around her neck over her mouth and nose, before tossing the disk between the gaps of the vent and sending it falling to the floor below. The disk bounces on the floor with a hollow clang, right in-between the two guards, who turn to look down at it with surprise on their faces. As they both realize what it is, a poof of white dust explodes from the disk, filling the hallway in a white cloud. Both guards are engulfed by the smoke, and Minkyung watches with a smirk as they collapse to the tiled floor. She pulls up the map on her watch once more—quickly, as she knows she only has about an hour before the guards awaken from their little slumber and she needs all the time she can get—and confirms there are no remaining guards in the area. Once again, it feels just a bit too safe. Not her problem. An easy job is an easy job, she reminds herself. Quickly, she unscrews the vent, leaning it up against the inner walls of the tunnel to screw back on during her escape, and drops to the floor. 

The dust in the air is already dissipating—it only works for a few minutes after release form the disk—but Minkyung leaves her mask on for safety. Looking around the hallway, she notices two security cameras oddly off. Her eyebrows cross. Something is definitely not normal here, she decides. She tries to scan them with her goggles—but they’re completely dead. Not even any backup batteries inside. The door is only protected by a single keypad, not even a fingerprint sensor. It’s as if they are just asking her to walk on in. Didn’t the client give her this map? She hadn’t considered it, but why did it only show location of the guards? Not security cameras or… other people in the building? She tries to scan the room past the door with her goggles and gets nothing. Extra strange. A sense of dread itches at the back of her neck, and she opens up the menu of her holo-watch, scrolling through the settings until she finds what she needs to provide an extra sense of safety. “Activate emergency teleport button.” Minkyung rarely uses her emergency teleport function, as it costs an insane amount of ship fuel and usually burns up an entire teleporter battery, but something tells her that whatever’s beyond that door might require her to make a quick escape to her ship. A small, bright blue button pops out of the wristband of her watch, and she sighs. She’s just being paranoid, really. If anything, all the times she’s managed to get away from whatever—cops, investigators, bandits, bounty hunters—is going to her head, and now she’s afraid that something might be too easy. It’s ridiculous. But better safe than sorry, she supposes. Using her goggles to scan over the thumbprint residue on the keypad, she punches in the code with her gloved hands. The door slides open. 

She sees both exactly what she expected, and what she didn’t expect at all at the same time. A group of officers in Galactic Enforcer uniforms, all pointing their ray guns her way.  
“Kim Minkyung, freeze where you stand!”

And with that, she presses the blue button on her watch and disintegrates into a thousand blue particles.


	2. we're where we were

Kang Yebin had just watched two months of her life disintegrate in front of her. She had waited, and waited, planned and planned, just for this moment—and it was all fucking gone in a split second. And all that was left of all that work was a bunch of blue particles for a few seconds, and finally, nothing. 

Her first big catch, or what she thought would be. Disappeared. 

Becoming a Galactic Enforcer had been hard enough, and now she had a real case, a real big target with some weight behind them. Someone genuinely dangerous and crafty. And she had spent two months planning this all. The fake heist idea was brilliant, she had thought. 

“You’re still an amateur.” Seokmin had warned her. “You’re going to forget something. You’re going to mess up. It happens.” 

Yebin hadn’t listened. It was the thrill of the first big case. Her first big case as a lieutenant, the fancy new title that shined on her badge and gave her a new, blue access card. One that let her into hallways and rooms in the Galactic Enforcer headquarters that she wasn’t allowed in before. She was so caught up in her own special-ness and glamorous new title that she had forgotten to put a damn teleportation blocking shield up, and now her target was gone. 

She realizes she’s still holding her gun out, mostly in shock. Every other member of her squad looks at her, and down at the faint bluish scorch marks on the floor where their target once stood. 

Nayoung, ever calm, sighs. 

“We’ll get her next time.” She says, tucking her gun away. 

“We didn’t put up a goddamn anti-teleport shield?” Soonyoung blurts out. 

Yebins words feel stuck at the back of her throat. She blinks a couple more times.

Kyungwon, currently furiously navigating through multiple screens on her holo-watch, takes a second to defend her coworker. 

“We studied her patterns. She doesn’t usually teleport away! She’d have to activate it ahead of time, and she would only do that if she knew something was wrong.” She zooms in on a flight tracker. “Damn, no signal from her ship. She’s good. Though I bet the teleport took a few gallons of ship fuel out. Teleporting from inside a building is hard.”  

“What am I supposed to say to the captain? That we wasted two months on Yebin’s bullshit plan? Just for her to get away? The amount of wasted credits is not going to look good for any of us!” Soonyoung leans against the wall, frustration permeating even from his crossed-arms stance. 

“Getting angry won’t help much now.” Nayoung replies. “We failed. The GE fails often. We just don’t advertise when we lose.” She unlocks a small scanner from her belt, and bends down to the circle of teleport residue on the floor. “This is a situation to learn, and improve. It was Yebin’s first leading mission, let us not forget. She did relatively well for a beginner.”

Yebin finally finds the words to speak with. 

“Nayoung, am I going to get fired?”

Nayoung gives a light chuckle.

“No. Don’t be silly. My first mission, I messed up too. And I’m fine, aren’t I?”

“But you didn’t let the culprit escape.” Soonyoung mutters under his breath.

“Soonyoung!” Yuha snaps. “We are all at fault here. Just because Yebin designed the mission does not mean we are not culpable for whatever failings within it. Did you read the mission outline, like you were asked to, or did you pretend to read it like you always do?”

Soonyoung doesn’t respond, only scoffs and grumbles something under his breath. 

Nayoung stands up.

“Let’s head back to home base.”

+++

 

“I’m not saying I’m not disappointed. But I think that for a first mission, it’s understandable.” Captain Taeyeon leans over her desk, looking at the quartet, hands folded in front of her. Yebin can’t help but noti mce the shiny gold pin on the front of her uniform—the mark of a captain. “However,” the captain continues, looking directly into Yebin’s eyes, “Yebin, I believe your fanaticism for this particular criminal as well as your excitement over your promotion may have gotten in the way of this mission being the best that it can be. Your direct contact with the criminal before the mission was unnecessary, even with disguise.”

Yebin looks down at her lap, face reddened. Her teammates had been rather appalled that she wanted to play the role of the client, face covered, voice changed and all, but they had let her go through with it. She had just wanted to see Minkyung up close. She’d studied so many blurry security camera screenshots, headshots, portraits, but never had she experienced that face in person.  Not many had. She’d been tracking Minkyung’s—or Roa, as many in the public knew her—work for a long time, even while she was training for the GE. Many of Yebin’s other trainees would make fun of her for ogling the wanted posters that hung everywhere—giggling that she had a ‘crush’ on the wanted criminal. 

Taeyeon’s voice snaps Yebin back into reality.

“I am keeping this squadron on the case, since you all are the most informed on her. But please plan more carefully next time.” Taeyeon leans back in her chair, and snaps her fingers. A small circular droid floats over, handing her a purple cigarette. “Please keep in mind that we need to catch her. There are a lot of other organizations, especially bounty hunter collectives, after her. I was informed they are raising her bounty by another million credits. We cannot fail on this.” The droid lights the cigarette, and it floats away as she takes a long drag on it. “Get it done, ok?” 

“Yes ma’am.” All four of them respond in sync.

Yebin’s hands feel awfully sweaty.

 

+++

 

Minkyung awakes with a violent cough, the smell of burnt metal all around her. She’s lying head to the floor on the teleport bay of her ship, blue electricity still buzzing in the air around her. 

Fuck. 

She can’t believe she was right. It was a damn setup.

She curses her arrogance, her blindness caused by the promise of a million credits, that made her unable to notice earlier. It was so painfully obvious in retrospect. A crime designed by a bunch of people that only knew how to stop crime, not how to do it. 

Standing up, slow and steady, she centers herself, slowly stepping off the teleport bay with still-shaky legs, rubbing her temples in a feeble attempt to remove the burning headache that came with literally moving through space-time. 

Minkyung presses her hand to the door, and sighs as it lets her through. She’s thankful for the cloaking device on her ship—it had cost her a pretty penny, but it means she has a bit of time to readjust without the cops being able to track her down. She moves through the metal hallway until she reaches the pilot bay, and sighs as she plops down in her chair. 

“Nana, what’s the fuel reserves looking like?” 

The gentle voice of her ships companion AI gently lilts from the speakers.

“At about 25%, boss. I would highly recommend a refill.” 

“And what’s the nearest place we can reach on that?”

“Looks like the cybernetic planetoid structure Elision, boss. There’s a fuel compound there. I 

would recommend purchasing extra for next time you have to emergency teleport, boss.”

“I wasn’t planning on teleporting.” Minkyung sighs as she starts getting the ship warmed up. “Can you call Eunwoo? We need to talk.”

A holographic screen pops up in front of her as the ship begins to rumble into warp drive, jets slowly powering on. The face of an eager girl appears in front of her, who looks to be fiddling with a broken droid. 

“Minkyung! What’s up?”

“What’s up?” Minkyung says incredulously. “What’s up is that you linked me up with a fucking set-up! I just almost got arrested!”

Eunwoo quirks an eyebrow, twirling her multitool in her hand.  
“What now?”

“The fucking mission you forwarded my way. The job. The easy one, for lots of money? It was a  cover for the damn GE to try and get my ass! When I arrived at the joint, they tried to arrest me! Thank God I had the emergency teleport.”

“Oh. Emergency teleport.” Eunwoo chuckles. “That’s why your hair is so frizzy.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Nah, you love me.” The droid on the table fizzles a few sparks, and Eunwoo leans back. “Listen, I’m sorry. I can’t know everything. I did find you a pretty sweet score today though. Will that make it up to you?”

Minkyung crosses her arms, obviously frustrated, but still intrigued. 

“I’m mad, but I’m listening.”

“There’s this guy—crazy rich asshole—who’s visiting Raliese for a business trip.”

“I hate Raliese. There’s so many cops there, you know that. And the people there are so prissy.”

“Hey, listen to me. Let me finish.” Eunwoo says firmly. “He’s got this necklace. Family heirloom. It’s a pendant made of this ancient amber, that comes from some rare dead planet or whatever. Anyway, I have this black market dealer that Jieqiong hooked me up with, and she’s willing to buy it from whoever can get it for a lot of money. Like as much as your bounty. Which they added another million credits to today, by the way.”

Minkyung gazes out past the screen and into the blackness of the stars whirring past her as she flies through space. 

“So I just have to steal the necklace? That’s what you’re saying?” 

“I mean it won’t be easy. He’s got a big security detail, and y’know—it’s on Raliese. Like you mentioned. It’ll be a challenge.”

“I’m intrigued. I like a good challenge.” 

“I’ll send the details your way. I’m sorry ‘bout today. Consider this me making it up to you for almost getting you arrested? A good old fashioned jewelry heist. You love those.” 

“I do love those.” Minkyung admits, somewhat defeated. She grabs the ship’s controls as she notices on the radar that she’s approaching Elison, steering it towards the earth. “Fine. I need a pick-me-up anyway. I gotta go. Bye.”

“Bye!” Eunwoo says cheerily. 

As the call flickers off, Minkyung smiles. A good old classic job. Just what she needed.


	3. paint it over

The one thing that Yebin doesn’t love about her job is that she never gets to go home. Yes, she has a place to sleep, but that place to sleep is just a room on the Galactic Enforcer space station. She’s surrounded by her coworkers for every minute of her days. She has to eat meals watching a news ticker passing overhead, updating everyone on the latest bounties and criminal events. 

It’s exhausting.

But she has to admit—it’s what she signed up for. 

Now, she sits on the deck of the space station, watching the stars through the huge glass window, typing up the case report she had forgotten to do earlier. Her eyes are dry, and she’s tired. All day, she’s been trying not to cry.

She feels upset with herself.

She failed—and it’s not that Yebin hadn’t failed before, but she hadn’t failed so stupidly. 

“What are you doing still up?” Asks a voice above her.

Yebin looks up to see Seokmin looking down at her, his typical soft smile on his face.

“What are you?” she responds, folding her laptop closed. 

He seats himself in the armchair across from her. 

“Was gonna ask you how todays mission went.” He says. “I figured you’d be up.”

Seokmin is one of Yebin’s oldest friends. They had met at the GE training academy. They were both goofy and eager to learn. They both had something to prove.

Yebin sighs.

“You were right. I got too eager, and I forgot something.”

Seokmin had become a lieutenant a year and a half before Yebin, and she had initially been bitter—but she knew he deserved it. He knew things she didn’t. His advice was usually right in the end.

“It’s ok. Shit happens.” He reaches into his bag and pulls out a Thermos. “I made you some of that soup you like.”

“Ugh, fuck you. You’re always so good at knowing what I need. I’m starving.” 

“Taeyeon gave you another chance, because she believes in you. We all know you can do it. You’re one of the most knowledgeable people on Roa in the galaxy.” 

“You don’t need to comfort me. I’m fine.”

“I do need too. Because I know you.”

Yebin lets out a puff of breath between her lips, not answering, but Seokmin knows she means she appreciates it.

“How are your cases?” She asks, desperate to change the subject.

“They’re good.” Seokmin grins. “I got to arrest someone at a strip club today.” 

Yebin unscrews the cap of the thermos and gives Seokmin an overdramatic gasp, happy to talk about something else.

“Tell me more!”

 

+++

 

Tapping her fingers on the table, Yebin scans the restaurant another time. It’s one of her favorites—The Violum. It’s a little expensive, but it’s worth it, and its become one of her favorite meeting spots. The entire place is like a lush garden—overgrown with alien flora, and the whole restaurant is encompassed under a glass dome as it floats on a disk in the sky. Perhaps a little showy, but Yebin enjoys eating there and feeling fancy and rich for an hour. 

Finally, she spots what she’s been waiting for. A dark haired girl darts between tables, walking towards Yebin.

“Hey there.” She says, sliding into the seat across from her, gently pushing a large leaf out of her way. 

“Siyeon.” Yebin says. “I already got your order.” She studies Siyeon’s face, and realizes there’s something odd with her left eye—it’s a different color, and it looks shiny and fake. “What happened to your eye?”

Siyeon looks away, almost as if she’s embarrassed.

“Cybernetic replacement. I was in a pinch with a client. Didn’t deliver what they wanted. So they asked for something… something precious to me. Something hard to part with.”

Yebin’s pupils grow in surprise.  
“T-they took your eye?”

“I gave it. Far better than losing my life.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “ Listen. Are we here to talk, or what? As much as I appreciate you taking me out to lunch, you don’t call on me to talk in person often.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Yebin nervously adjusts the napkin in her lap and takes a sip of her wine—some fancy flavor made with berries from a planet that contained a cosmic anomaly, the waiter had said. 

“Yes, sorry. You know the plan I had? With Minkyung? The false heist.”

Siyeon opens her mouth to speak, but stops herself as a waiter walks over, placing a bowl of noodles in front of her.

“Thank you.” She grabs a pair of chopsticks, looking at the food like she hasn’t eaten in days, but manages to keep her attention on Yebin. “Yes, I do know. What about it.”

“Did you tell?”

“Tell what.”

“Tell Minkyung. The plan. She caught wind of it and got away.” 

“Me and Roa barely even talk.” 

“But you talk, do you not?”

Siyeon twists some noodles around her chopsticks.

“Listen, Yebin. If my friends in the… you know… ‘industry’ knew that I was getting paid under the table by the fucking GE to spill on what they’re planning and doing, I wouldn’t have this either.” She says, using a chopstick to point at her right eye. “I can’t tell people shit, because they’d know I’m an informant. Ya get it?”

“Couldn’t you just lie?”  
“Criminals are good at spotting lies. It’s part of why we’re so good at the lying itself.” Her cybernetic eye flashes red. “Maybe your plan was just bad.”

Yebin feels a sting in her gut at those words. She shouldn’t expect a criminal not to hurt her feelings—that was a given. But the realization that the failure of the mission was entirely her own hubris—that was what hurt. Siyeon wouldn’t lie to her, she knew that. She might be a criminal, but she was Yebin’s best informant. She had openly agreed to take lie detector tests, and she had given Yebin some of the best information around. 

“Did you just call me here to accuse me?” Siyeon says, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had begun to settle. “You know I hate coming down to Raliese. Cops fucking everywhere.”

“That’s why I make you come here. So you don’t turn on me.” Yebin says, feeling a sly confidence regain in her gut. “And, well—if you have any extra tidbits of information, I would appreciate it.”

“Am I getting paid for this?”

“I already queued 50,000 credits to be wired to your account.”

Siyeon gives her a wide, devilishly genuine smile. 

“Ok. Well, I don’t have much, but I heard she was going back to doing some basic heists. Working stealing items for black market dealers so she doesn’t have to deal with clients. Something to do with jewelry.” 

Yebin opens up her holo-watch and types a note. 

“Is that all?”

“Yeah. Sorry, not much.”  
“It’s fine.” Yebin gives a small smile, and pulls something from her pocket. “Here. This is your new contact phone. I’d advise you dispose of the old one. Message me if you think of anything, and I might have some extra cash for you.”

Siyeon shoves the phone in her pocket. 

“Got it.”

“I’ve already paid for the food, and I’ve got to go, so I’ll be off. See you next time.”  
“Next time.” Siyeon replies with a cocky smirk. 

 

+++

 

 

Three days after Minkyung fled the Galactic Enforcers, she finds herself among a crowd of them. She won’t lie—her nerves are sparking with fear. But it’s the fun kind. Not many know her face anyway, she makes herself hard to photograph—and she’s prone to making Jieqiong do some hacking to cover her tracks. She tries to hide a smile, thinking about how all the officers walking by don’t even know she’s a multi-million credit bounty. 

Raliese is a unique place. It’s not officially government-occupied, but right outside of its atmosphere, a huge network of Galactic Enforcer space stations have taken residency. Hundreds of officers flood down every day to have some time off and stretch their legs. It’s possibly one of the most dangerous places for a wanted criminal to be. 

The fact that not one person has noticed her just boosts Minkyung’s ego even more. 

She weaves between officers in their shiny uniforms, when she spots someone in the crowd that makes her eyes widen. 

She looks a little different than the last time she saw her—but it certainly is the girl she’s thinking of.

“Siyeon?” She shouts, and the girl looks up with a start. Minkyung jogs towards her, pushing aside a couple of bothered uniformed officers. “It’s been forever! What are you doing here?” 

“Scoping out a score. Nothing big.” Siyeon’s eyes flit around to make sure no one is closely listening to their conversation, and there seems to be a tinge of anxiety to her voice—like she’s afraid of something. 

“Me too.” Minkyung responds. Siyeon is an odd one—a very talented thief, but she has a knack for getting herself in trouble with shady characters. She supposes that’s why the girl has a brand new cybernetic eyeball and a few new scratches on her arms. “You doing ok, kid?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Listen, I have to go. Good to see you.” Siyeon turns around and starts weaving away through the crowd, leaving Minkyung standing there. 

 

+++

 

The targets name is Lord Chanyeol, Minkyung had learned. He’s a mogul in the fuel industry, but he has a special taste for the exquisite and opulent. The pendant he normally wore would be kept in his bedroom, within his traveling spaceship, docked outside of a trade center where he’d be conducting a meeting. His extensive collection of security guards, who were often highly trained retired military, would be tough to skirt around, but it was doable. She had this in the bag. 

So here she was—watching the man’s ship from a distance, standing around the corner of a nearby building.

It was absolutely ridiculous. The entire thing had been modeled to look like an old-timey cruise ship, like the ones in books Minkyung used to read about Earth. It was humungous, far too big for its function as what was essentially a chariot. The pure mass of the ship cast a huge shadow over the surrounding area, and plenty of locals and tourists were stopping to gawk at it. 

Minkyung cracks her knuckles, an old habit for getting her in the right headspace. She doesn’t have her fancy goggles or most of her other special gadgets besides her trusted multitool (but it seems that everyone carries a multitool these days), because she needs to make her disguise work, and she doesn’t mind getting down to the essentials either. She clears her throat, adjusting her blazer and making sure her feet are steady—she’s in heels. Just ten minutes ago, she had quickly gone on a shopping spree at a small boutique located underneath a huge floating restaurant, and purchased some new clothes to make sure her new identity was convincing enough. She pushes her shoulders back and with confident, yet careful steps, walks in the direction of the ship. There’s a mock walkway, like a wooden loading dock, let down, leading to a door to the ship’s interior. Minkyung can spot a couple guards wavering in and out, and a couple flashy-looking business men accompanied by finely dressed women enter and exit. A small crowd has gathered nearby, just to gaze up at the majesty of the ship itself. Two guards are flanking the walkway, both exhaustively denying curious passerby entry. 

Minkyung walks their way, reaching into the interior pocket of her blazer and pulling out an ID badge, flashing her best “innocent pretty girl” smile. 

“Hello. My name is Krystal Jung. I’m a reporter with the Stargaze Revue. I have an interview scheduled with Lord Chanyeol in an hour and he said I could board the ship beforehand to get everything settled?”

 

+++

 

Yebin is just trying to enjoy her bone juice.  
That’s what the tentacled alien man working at the refreshment stand had told her it was, and that’s what she’s going with. It’s a strange, milky liquid, but it mostly just tastes like coffee. 

It’s fine—but Yebin is never saying “surprise me” when ordering a drink again. 

She lets out a sigh, slightly slumping in her seat. She’s currently resting on a bench, watching as people nearby ogle one of the huge visiting spaceships that has taken residency on Railese. 

Two girls pass Yebin by, loudly chattering about the mysterious owner of the ship.

“I heard it belongs to a fuel mogul! He’s got enough money to buy this whole planet up if he wanted.” 

“That guy has a huge expensive jewelry collection.”

The word ‘jewelry’ only reminds Yebin the stupid thing she was trying to forget, and her earlier conversation with Siyeon—the elusive Minkyung, and Yebin’s own failure to catch her.

The meeting with Siyeon hadn’t been as successful as she had hoped it would be. In her mind, it would either culminate in an explosive confession, or in a leak of info that would change the course of the entire case. Instead, it was a sad fizzle of mostly nothing. To add to the hurt—she now was fifty thousand credit short. She had told Siyeon that the ones paying her were the GE, but that was a bald faced lie. The GE would never pay criminals. They got their informants by force, a nasty fact Yebin liked to forget. She, however, was too nice for her own good. Once she had established contact with Siyeon, she had to find a way to keep her in but still hold an air of legitimacy and power. She wonders what her teammates would think if they knew most of her paycheck went towards taking a criminal out to lunch once a month.

God. She might be really bad at her job. 

A message buzzes on her watch. 

Meeting in 15. - NY

She groans and takes another sip of her… bone juice, looking out over the crowd. Down by the ship, she spots someone. A tall, skinny figure in a black suit. Yebin isn’t really paying attention, half her brain busy trying to conjure up what the hell they were going to talk about at the meeting anyway, but she watches the suited figure—a woman with hair dyed a silvery blue—talk with the guards outside the ship. She seems professional, and put together, even though Yebin can only see her back. She seems like she has her shit together. Yebin wishes that was something she could say about herself. 

The guards step aside, letting the woman through. As she makes strides up the walkway, she turns around to look behind her, revealing her face.

That’s when Yebin drops her drink.

Most people couldn’t recognize Kim Minkyung. Sure, her exploits were well known, but it was hard to find pictures of her that weren’t corrupted data files or blurry camera footage. 

But Yebin knew.  
Yebin had sat right across from Minkyung. 

In retrospect, she supposed she could’ve arrested Minkyung then, in the restaurant. But she couldn’t have proof it was her until she attempted the job, and Minkyung would probably get away free or shipped off to a an easily escapable prison for a few years. 

But right now, in this particular moment, pants and shirt sopping wet, that meeting in the diner is coming very in handy. 

She knows that nose, those fox-like eyes. Minkyung is the woman in the suit.

But by the time she’s processed this, Minkyung is already inside the ship. 

Fuck the meeting, Yebin thinks. 

She tosses her cup to the ground, not conscious enough to not litter, and fishes her ID badge out of her jacket pocket, running towards the ship.


End file.
